While there’s nothing official as of now, something interesting could be brewing between Delta Air Lines and its wholly owned regional subsidiary, Endeavor Air.
Continue reading: Could Delta Integrate Regional Jets Into Mainline Fleet?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
The logical thing for the airlines to have done is to raise the scope clause as part of the plan to pay the mainline pilots more.
This current proposal for Delta and Endeavor looks like the old "B-Scale" concept. It is not a bad idea, as long as Endeavor pilots can transition over to mainline Delta.
I think the hangup is that 9E operates exclusively CR7/9s - which are perceived by pax as a "regional jet" - as contrasted with the E175s that "feel" more mainline. But, that can easily be overcome, especially if integration means no more scope clause.
Worth pointing out that E-190s were mainline on US Airways and no one seemed to notice or care
I wonder if part of this would be as a pipeline solution. With one seniority list Delta would be pilot’s first choice over the regionals, and they’d (theoretically) have a job for life. And then Delta wouldn’t be competing at all to hire mainline FOs.
Tweaked some wording in the opening paragraph:
All of the “big three” US carriers have regional [brands] — namely American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express. With this, we see separate airlines operating regional jets on behalf of the major airlines. Each of the “big three” carriers has multiple regional [operators], given how many regional jets they operate. In some cases the carriers are wholly owned by the major airlines[, and are subsidiaries], while in other cases they aren’t[, and are franchises, operating on behalf of the major].
I have no clue why other US airlines have not picked up E-190's. Most passengers for two FA's. There are plenty of markets that could support an up-gauge from a 175.
Airline pilots seem to be somewhat temperamental. I would not want to work for mainline Delta if I were to lose seniority to other pilots already flying for the airline. Otherwise, I think that the airlines should have operated their own regional aircraft from the start.
Business as usual, you combine them for a decade, financial crisis hits, you break them up again.
Then when things boom again you combine them for another decade until the next financial crisis hits.
The word is that the E-190's fuel efficiency was less than advertised. JetBlue was actively disappointed by them and was looking for years to get rid of theirs
I imagine this would also put Delta in a stronger position to end its contract with Sky West. Sky West is a dumpster fire. Delta has been trying to get rid of the CRJ-200s for several years but Sky West isn't in a position to do so. Sky West is also very unreliable compared to other regional carriers.
Integrating Endeavor and its fleet of 136 69-76 seat aircraft might also allow DL to add 136 more E175 at Republic and SkyWest. I am pretty sure the scope language only allows X number of airframes to be outsourced to a third party carrier. Absorbing Endeavor would lower that number.
Interesting that this discussion so far has been focused only on flight crews. These aircraft will undergo many thousands of man/hours of maintenance as well. There is a wide disparity in pay between Endeavor techs and Delta techs. This may drive the CASM up so hight RJs no longer make sense.
1) The FAs and Mechanics are part of the equation.
2) There’s always the dream that the market will reverse and they can go back to pilots on food stamps flying JFK to DFW in 76 seat jets.
3) If the unions / Co do a reasonable deal, this could work out to a win-win. It’s just difficult because there’s so many variables to it.
The reason it hasn’t happened before is the Union pay scale disparity.
Delta has fewer unions than the other majors.
But they definitely could have the pilots on the same seniority list. I could see this happening at all the majors to protect their own express carriers.
United already owns a share of Mesa which flies exclusively for United. It would make sense there, as long as the unions agree.
What on earth would Delta have to gain by folding Endeavor into Delta? The pilots, sure. But all Delta would gain would be mechanics and flight attendants that would get paid more and pilots who would very quickly demand "pay for command, rather than productivity" for RJ captains.
This is precisely why United walked away from buy Horizon and ultimately retreated from the West Coast in favor of Alaska.
United wanted to pay its 737 and 727 pilots more in line with pilots from the emerging ultra-low startups and post bankruptcy carriers like PeoplExpress and Continental, while continuing to pay DC-10 and 747 pilots as they had been. This would have meant Horizon captains flying a 50-seat DH8-300 getting paid something closer to a 737 captain on the theory that command responsibility is the same whether there's 50 or 250 passengers behind the captain. This, of course, would have made operating Horizon impossible.
If Delta suddenly had CR9 captains on their ALPA contract, it's a no-brainer their productivity would collapse compared to as it is at Endeavor and places like Columbus, GA, Dothan, AL and Marquette, MI would quickly be served by Contour or Denver Air Connection.